


First and Last

by ArvenaPeredhel



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - All Media Types, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-09
Updated: 2018-12-08
Packaged: 2019-09-14 16:16:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16916160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArvenaPeredhel/pseuds/ArvenaPeredhel
Summary: When they met, and when they met again.





	1. Mithrim

The first time he glimpsed her was through a doorway to nowhere.

After Losgar, after that first starlit battle, after his father’s death and Maitimo’s capture, Macalaurë had led his people to a verdant wood and a lake that later settlers would call Mithrim (he’d named it _Maranwë,_ Destiny, during a moment of ironic cynicism, and Curvo had laughed bitterly) in the hopes that they might have some normalcy. And one day he’d been walking outside the camp and had encountered it.

The Door (he wasn’t sure what else to call it, except perhaps ‘bad artwork’ but that made him think of his mother far away) was simple, two stone pillars topped with a third; all were cracked and broken with age. The towers were covered in deeply carved runes, but he didn’t recognize the language, and the crosspiece at the top had a crude pictogram of some kind of leaping animal at its center.

Normally Macalaurë would have been fascinated by something like the Door - here was real hard evidence of settlement here by someone who was not elvish - but somehow it felt utterly alien. As if the stone construction didn’t belong in Arda Marred, or even Arda at all.

And then…

 

~*~

He was out for a walk in the cool of the morning - one of the only times he could get any privacy as High King of the Ñoldor - and had taken his harp in hopes of finding somewhere to sing. Mindlessly he wandered, letting his feet carry him where they would, when he heard it. _Laughter_. Light, and lilting, nothing like the sounds his people made now. This was water running over smooth river stones, or the breaking of spring after a deep frost. Macalaurë paused, frowned, and listened, stilling even the beating of his heart.

The sound came from ahead, and before he could think he was already moving, almost running after the fleeting moment of joy he’d been allowed to witness. Before he knew it the noise grew louder and he’d moved from the woods proper into the small clearing of -

\- of the Door.

The Door-that-should-not-be was standing before him, and through it Macalaurë could see the source of the laughter.

Between the two pillars another world seemed to blaze into existence. The King could see a fountain carved of some rosy stone (not as cunning nor as light as one his mother would have made, but beautiful all the same), and flowers peeking through the great sandstones laid down to form the floor of this strange terrace, and then sitting on the edge of the fountain there was a woman.

Such a woman he had never seen.

She was pale, with hair dark as Varda’s skies and eyes the same cool grey as his father, but she was smiling and laughing at something he could not see through the Door. She spoke, and it was a language he’d never heard. It seemed harsh and grating at first, all sharp consonant clusters and odd diphthongs, but the way she spoke it was filled with warmth and light and he found himself suddenly longing to learn her tongue and speak to her. At a loss for words, Macalaurë suddenly wondered if she could hear and see as he could. _If so, I might send her some message. But what?_

For a moment he was frozen, unsure, and then his fingers shifted and he remembered that his harp was still in his hands. Slowly, he sat on a stone bench across from the Door (set there by some Noldo who thought it was Great Art, he thought, for the joints in the rock are Valinorean in style) and positioned the instrument in his arms. He took a deep breath, plucked out an opening V-chord, and began to sing in light Quenya.

“ _I woke in darkness deep and saw_  
The light that gleamed down through the trees  
Of Varda Queen of all the stars  
That hung above me glimmering”

The woman started, immediately looking at Macalaurë, and when she stood he saw her raven hair fell almost to her feet. _Like Elentári_ , he thought, wondering if he spied one of her Maiar in Aman far away. But the woman was too real, too alive to be a Maia, and when she looked at him he saw youth and beauty and dreams in her eyes.

Slowly, almost hesitantly, she approached the Door, one hand outstretched. Macalaurë stood, still playing the chords of his song, and mirrored her movements. There was a tension between them thick enough to be cut with a knife -

\- and then he stepped through the Door.


	2. Oxford

The last time he saw her, it was the year 1956 of the Sixth Age of Arda, and he had been alone for far longer than he could remember. It was Maitimo’s suicide that had driven him to solitude, and yet now, on this night, the anniversary of his only older brother’s death, he could not stay secluded. _To town it is, then._

The pub was called the Eagle and Child (he wasn’t entirely sure _why_ it was named thus, as thinking on it for too long evoked images of blood and a cruel shackle set into a long-since-vanished mountain range and his brother carried like a babe out of hell by the man who loved him), and it was alight with activity. He was dressed in a clean shirt and a pair of what the Edain here called _slacks_ , and square-toed shoes - the only thing separating him from them was his long hair, coiled up so as to hide the points of his ears, and the gloves he wore on both hands to hide the scar of the Silmaril. He entered, passed between the ranks of academics, and seated himself at the bar.

“Red wine.” he said tersely when asked, drawing from a stack of bills in his pocket. “And leave the bottle, if you please.” He had learned their tongue, English they called it, but it was more a _re-_ learning than a fresh start - _she_ had taught him to speak it, long ago, in her castle by the sea, and it had returned faster than he thought possible. _One more thing I can thank you for, o Gentle Queen_. he thought, and took his first drink.

The door opened again, and the atmosphere changed. He could hear whispers from the youths around him, and it made him laugh. Love - or lust, rather - had a way of making all it encountered, _fírimar_ or _eldar_ , into its thralls. Perhaps some blonde beauty had entered the pub, and would compete for the affections of those around her in the same game he’d once played (Maitimo had preferred only Findekáno’s company, but he’d still encourage his younger siblings to seek out company from the _nissi_ of Aman).

“Hello, Susan.” the bartender said warmly. “The usual?”

“Not tonight.” the woman who had been addressed said in response, sitting beside Macalaurë and repositioning her purse. “Scotch, on the rocks, if you please, Jack.”

Macalaurë was speechless as he stole a glimpse at the person beside him. Her face, her eyes, her hair - it was the same. It was  _her._ _Her. Here. Now._ _Tonight._ He fought the urge to swear in old Quenya. Had the Valar decided to taunt him even now? But no, she was real enough, checking her lipstick in a compact mirror and eying the bartender as he poured her a glass of the foul liquor called Scotch. _What do I do? What do I say?_

Before he could stop himself, he was already motioning to the man behind the counter.

“The lady’s drink is on me.” he said. “And any she should choose to have afterwards.”

“That will hardly be necessary, sir, I - !” the woman began, but then she saw his eyes and her face paled. Her mouth opened and closed several times, and then she fell silent and edged a little nearer to him on her stool. The bartender passed her the Scotch, which now was almost forgotten.

At last, she spoke.

“… you’re real.”

“Of course I am real.” he replied. “I am as real as you are.”

“No, I mean… I thought… that it was all a game. Or something.” she said with a sigh. “A silly little game my sister and brothers would play in the country where we were Kings and Queens of a land where the animals talked.”

“Is that all I am to you?” Macalaurë asked, bitterness edging his voice. “A game?”

The woman didn’t answer, taking a drink of her Scotch.

“Answer me.” he said finally. “Is that what happened? You decided it was only a game and closed the door so I could not return?”

“I didn’t _want_ to leave!” she said, louder than she’d intended, and she blushed when people quieted. “I… I don’t remember why. We went searching for the White Stag - ”

“The one you said could grant wishes?” Macalaurë asked. “The one Irissë swore she’d catch?”

“ _Yes._ ” she said through gritted teeth. “We followed him and then wandered through some trees and then - and then we were back here, in the year 1941, and I was a _child_ again and I couldn’t bear it, Macalaurë,” she said at last, her tongue still trilling out the R in his name, “I couldn’t _imagine_ going back to school and listening to silly girls prattle on when I’d seen and done so much, but then I _became_ one of those 'silly girls’ and it wasn’t silly at all it was _important_ and they were the ones who were being silly and - !”

“So that’s why the Door closed.” Macalaurë said. “You were gone.”

“I didn’t _want_ to go!” she insisted. “But then I did and I had no choice. I had to do what was best.” She downed more Scotch angrily, and he returned to his wine.

“Did you ever return?” he asked softly. “Were you given that chance?”

“Once.” she said, almost pouting. “But it was different. Years later. We weren’t rulers any more, just people. Just helping. And then Aslan - ”

“Aslan?”

“Not important right now. He said we could never return, Peter and I, that we were too old. I was only fifteen, I wasn’t too old!” With a petulant sigh she took another drink, and Macalaurë watched her. She was upset, near tears, and he had no idea what to do except let her be. Finally though, he spoke again.

“My Queen,” he murmured, for she was a Queen, that much was still true no matter what time had done to either of them, “what ails you?”

For a moment she was absolutely silent, her face unreadable. Then she spoke, and her voice was colder than Námo’s.

“They’re dead.” she said. “Peter and Edmund and Lucy. They’re gone.”

_Oh._

_Oh, no._

For once they were absolutely equal, and finally Macalaurë reached out and offered his hand.

“As are my brothers, my Lady Susan.” he said at last, her name still as warm on his lips as ever. “All six of them. And I have wandered Arda Marred through ages uncounted to pay for our sins.”

Susan turned, and their eyes met again. The first time it had been wondering, joyous almost; now their gazes reflected the same grief.

“… it has been a year.” she said. “Train crash. And my last words to them were angry.”

“The pain never truly fades, my Queen, no matter how the centuries may try and dull it.” Macalaurë said. “But if you would permit me, I would try to share it with you.”

Susan paused, frowning, and then took his hand in hers.

“I should like that.” she said, and together they left the Eagle and Child.


End file.
